


Sleeping at Last

by affectivefallacy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, No Plot, it just rambles on, just fluff, like really pointless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6952903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/affectivefallacy/pseuds/affectivefallacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz and Jemma can't fall asleep, so they come up with a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping at Last

**Author's Note:**

> lord, this turned out much longer than I intended! it's complete fluff, it has no plot. I just let these two idiots talk and see what happened.

They lay in bed, facing each other on their sides, the quiet dark pressing in around them. Jemma watched Fitz’s face, tracing the dip of his mouth and shallow breaths, and the fluttering of his eyelids.

“You’re not asleep,” she commented. 

He popped one eye open. “I’m not,” he said, opening both and rolling half over onto his back. “Can’t.” 

“Me neither.” Jemma shifted in the bed and sat up, with Fitz following suit and leaning back against his headboard. “Feel restless.” 

It had been a hectic day for both of them, made up of a lot of new projects and discoveries happening in the lab. In addition to such scientific discoveries, they’d also been discovering many new things about each other recently, including the fact that neither of them could fall asleep easily if their brains were riled up, and sleeping near the person who riled their brain up the most didn’t exactly help that matter. 

“Are you still thinking about the latching mechanism?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” he sighed, “And you? The -”

“Solidifying the composition, yes.” 

They sat, Fitz staring off into the darkness of the room and Jemma toward the sheets tangled at their feet, minds turning around their individual and one another’s projects, mostly against their will.  

Fitz opened his mouth to speak, “Maybe if you -” 

“No!” Jemma cut him off, and Fitz startled, turning to her and blinking. “Don’t you dare.” 

He opened and closed his mouth. “… What?” 

“I am _tired_ , Fitz. I want to _sleep_ ,” she whined. “But I can’t cause my brain won’t stop thinking. If yours doesn’t stop thinking either, neither of us will ever get to sleep, and if you dare try to give me any sort of hypothesis to work out, I swear …” 

“Okay, okay!” He let out a small grunt and faced forward again, thumping his head back against the headrest. “But clearly we _can’t_ fall asleep.”

Jemma frowned. “Maybe if we talk about something else. Not scientific. Then we’ll just sort of … drift off.” 

Fitz smirked. “Talk about something not scientific? Is that possible?” He looked back over at her and let out a small laugh at her slightly miffed expression at him rejecting her plan. “Jemma, half our pillow talk ends up being about science.”

“Well, we can at least try,” she insisted, shifting into a more comfortable position from sitting on her knees.  

Fitz sighed and leaned his head back again, closing his eyes and trying not to pay too much mind to the images of blueprints for his newest design that flashed behind his eyelids. “Okay … what about?” 

“Doctor Who? The grocery list? How we need more deionized water diluent?” 

“All those things require a tempting level of cognition. Except maybe the diluent, but I don’t think we’ll get very far with that one.” 

Jemma sat in silence for a moment, brow furrowed, scrutinizing the comforter pooled around her legs. “Oh,” she clapped her hands together, startling Fitz’s eyes open, “Memories!” 

“What?” 

“Memories. Reminiscing. It doesn’t require much thought, and if they’re happy memories, it boosts serotonin levels, which in turn makes you sleepy.” 

Fitz frowned. “It can also cause wakefulness.” 

“Yes, but we’ll be very low key about it,” Jemma smiled, settling herself back horizontally on the bed, “Just kind of sleepy, dreamy reminiscing. It’ll have the right affect.” She tucked her hands under her pillow and closed her eyes. When Fitz didn’t move she opened them again. “Lay down.” 

“This seems very forced,” Fitz grumbled, shifting away from the headboard and dragging a pillow down to lay on his side facing her.  

“Okay,” she said, her voice soft and breathy, which Fitz got the feeling was by design. Of course Jemma would have a methodology to trying to fall asleep. “Remember that time is Professor Ridling’s class that you accidentally knocked over a whole line of claisen flasks?” 

“I do. They were empty though.” 

“There was shattered glass everywhere, Fitz. I think Sarah cut her hand trying to help you clean it up.” 

“Yeah, but at least there weren’t toxic chemicals everywhere. Sarah didn’t burn her hand off.” 

“I suppose that’s a positive spin to put on your failure.” 

Fitz pouted, closing his eyes. “Yeah, well, remember that time in our optimization course that Jeremy asked you to bring him a prevailing torque lock and you,” Fitz chuckled, “brought him a socket pipe.” 

Jemma’s forehead crinkled together, eyes still pressed closed. “That’s ridiculous. I did no such thing.” 

“Yes, you did,” Fitz smiled. “It was hilarious.”

“I’m sure only you and Jeremy thought it was hilarious.”

They lapsed into silence after that and Fitz noted that Jemma’s plan seemed to be working. He felt a sleepy peacefulness overcoming his body, and his mind had calmed down significantly. He figured they should bring it home, however.  

“Why were you even taking that course? It was in the engineering,” Fitz yawned, “department.” 

“You took biochem courses.” She yawned after him. 

“Yeah, but they were for general credit. That was an advanced course.” 

Jemma let out a sigh as she felt herself slowly drifting, Fitz’s words to her ears sounding distant. It was a few moments before she responded and Fitz wondered if she’d fallen asleep. When she spoke her words were soft and a little slurred together. 

“You … well, we weren’t going to have any other classes together that semester.” 

Jemma nestled more snugly into her pillow, reaching out a hand and pulling up the comforter. Fitz responded a second later. 

“You took it … just so we’d have a class together?” 

“… Yeah.” 

“That’s funny,” Fitz turned and pressed his face into his pillow.   
  
“What’s funny is …,” Jemma trailed off. “What’s funny is after we became best friends, we had less classes together.” She shifted forward so her and Fitz were settled closer and he breathed her in, reaching out a hand to loop around her waist but it fell somewhere on the mattress instead. Jemma continued, “… and that first semester when you hated me we had … all our classes together.” 

“Wait, what?” Fitz’s eyes snapped open and he sat halfway up. 

Jemma felt his weight shifting and the mattress jostle under her, the covers pulling halfway off, and she opened her own eyes with an irritated expression. 

“ _Fitz_ , we were falling asleep.” 

“You said … you said ‘when you hated me’,” he repeated, mouth agape in confusion as he looked down at her. 

Jemma frowned, sitting up herself and tugging the covers back with a little annoyed force. “Yes, before we became partners.” 

Fitz blinked. “I never hated you.” 

Jemma rubbed at her eyes and looked sternly at him. “Yes, you did. You wouldn’t talk to me.” 

Fitz sat up all the way and scooted back against the headboard, staring at Jemma intently. “That doesn’t mean I _hated_ you. I just didn’t know what to say.” 

She rolled her eyes, moving up towards him, and gave an exasperated huff. “Don’t be ridiculous, Fitz. I thought you were smart and wanted to be your friend, but you were competing with me to be the smartest in class all the time. You’d always steal questions and things.” 

“Wait, is that what _you_ were doing?”

“Only because you were!” She huffed again, giving a pout. “You started it.” 

Fitz shook his head. “I didn’t start anything. I was afraid to talk to you cause I thought you were so much smarter than me. I was trying to think of something impressive enough to say to you. I was trying to not look like an idiot in class.” 

Jemma stopped, face scrunching up in confusion. “No, that’s not … I thought you were always trying to one-up me. And I thought you must hate me cause we were competing to be the youngest, smartest person in class. I thought we were,” she dropped her voice down to a whisper, “ _bitter rivals._ ” 

Her and Fitz stared at each other, unblinking, and then to Jemma’s surprise her boyfriend started laughing. 

“Why are you laughing?!” she cried, indignant. 

“It is kinda funny,” he said, getting the words out between chuckles, “Just … this huge misunderstanding.” 

“I don’t think it’s funny,” she huffed, folding her arms. She found no humor in being told she’d had the wrong impression of events all these years. Jemma Simmons didn’t have wrong impressions, only logical ones. And there was another thing - “I mean, if I’d known better we could have been friends that much sooner.” 

Fitz squinted. “We got paired up in chem lab almost right after that. Like, what, three months we missed by?”

“Three months is three months too long,” Jemma said, looking away, arms folded tightly around her.   

Fitz softened, and he reached out to pull her one hand away from her chest and gently tug her towards him. “Yeah, I agree.” 

Jemma sighed, relaxing into his side. “Well, you got the better end of this misunderstanding. You didn’t have to go several weeks thinking someone hated you.”

Fitz winced and then nodded. “Yeah, I hate to think you ever thought I hated you.” 

“It’s a very unpleasant feeling,” Jemma continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Especially when it’s someone you really liked.”

At that, Fitz sat up straighter against his pillows, and quirked an eyebrow. “Really liked?” he asked with a grin spreading across his face. 

Jemma rolled her eyes, even while she felt a small blush creep up her face. “Yes, well, I just said I thought you were smart and had wanted to be your friend.” 

“Yeah, but like, really liked?” he teased. 

Jemma squished back further halfway between the pillows and Fitz’s chest, looking determinedly away from him. “I did at least think you were cute when we first met.” After a few moments of silence, in which she could only imagine Fitz’s smug smile, she turned to him. “And you? Didn’t you think I was cute? Or pretty?” 

Fitz shrugged his one shoulder currently not being pinned down by her, “Nnh, I guess.” 

Jemma shifted, gauging his expression to see if he was teasing her again, but it seemed genuine. She made an affronted scoff. “You guess?” she asked, “You  _guess_ , Leopold?”

“Hey, uncalled for.” 

“Are you saying you thought I _wasn’t_ pretty?” 

Fitz’s eyes widened, holding up a placating hand. This could suddenly take a very bad turn that ended up with him trying to fall asleep on his own tonight if he wasn’t careful. 

“No, I just didn’t really notice … er, I mean, didn’t really think about it, I guess.” 

Jemma narrowed her eyes. “What?” she said, her voice disbelieving and a little mocking, “Had you not gone through puberty yet?” 

Fitz frowned, letting out a half childish whine, but entwining his fingers with Jemma’s at the same time. “Why are you so mean?” 

She glanced down at their hands and back up at him. “I’m not the one who let a girl I didn’t think was pretty go three months thinking I hated her.” 

“I didn’t think you _weren't_ pretty,” Fitz argued, rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. He noticed the small smile playing on Jemma’s lips even as she tried to suppress it. “I just remember thinking you were so smart. I couldn’t get over that, I didn’t have time to think about anything else. Like I said, I was trying to impress you.” 

He titled his head and caught her eyes, watching them as she mulled that over. At last, she smiled firmly and leaned back into him, laying her head on his shoulder. “That’s good enough.” 

Fitz let out a breath, settling back and resting his head against his pillow. It was the truth irregardless, but he was glad he could count on the fact Jemma would easily take a compliment on her intelligence over her looks. They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, breathing each other in and playing with their hands tangled together on Fitz’s lap. 

After a while Fitz spoke, “I do think you’re hot though.” 

“Ugh, Fitz,” Jemma cried, pushing away from him, a wide grin on her face to counter her words. Fitz smiled back and captured her other hand in his as she sat up on her knees. She rolled her eyes, still grinning, and then leaned forward to give him a kiss that assured their original plan was moot. Neither of them would be getting to sleep anytime soon. 

**Author's Note:**

> \- yes the title does come from what you think it does  
> \- my aesthetic is being contrary to popular fandom opinion, like saying Fitz didn't have an immediate physical attraction to Jemma when they first met  
> \- I may turn this into a series of just different scenes of Fitz and Jemma in bed together (of the non-NSFW variety) because I keep coming up with cute scenes of them like that as I'M trying to fall asleep. My brain won't turn off either, but it's all FitzSimmons.


End file.
